The Cobbler of Buttercup
by Sean C. Hayden

The Earl of Buttercup, inspecting his shoes, sighed. The black leather, once polished to a gleam, was now worn and scuffed. The shiny brass buckles had dulled, and the soles felt as though they were thinner than they’d once been. “These shoes sour my stomach,” the Earl grumbled. “They make me sick!” he shouted, poking his carriage driver in the back with his cane.

“We’re to detour by that decrepit old cobbler on our way to the Lady Nettlebottom,” the Earl said, still poking his cane through the small window in the front of the enclosed carriage and jabbing it into his driver’s back.

“Of course, my Lord,” the carriage driver replied, whipping the horse into animation.

As they traveled along the mud-choked lanes, the carriage driver imagined himself murdering the Earl in increasingly disgusting ways, the great black horse imagined himself trampling the carriage driver beneath his shod hoofs, and the Earl of Buttercup lost himself in a fantasy involving the Lady Nettlebottom, shackles, creamed milk, and a horse whip.

The cobbler awoke in his usual way—hands shaking violently, nauseous, weak in the knees, and twitching with nervousness. He reached immediately for his jug of distilled potato water and took a long draught. As soon as the fiery distillation touched his lips, he felt the trembling in his hands begin to ease. He then settled himself on the edge of the bed and began a long coughing fit. The cobbler hadn’t cobbled any shoes for quite some time. These days he supported himself selling his distilled potato water. He had once been a very good cobbler. In fact, he’d been a far better cobbler than he was a distiller, but even with the potato water’s poor quality, people seemed to have a greater appetite for it than they’d ever had for his shoes. He found the income quite sufficient.

The Earl’s carriage made its way into the small township of Buttercup. The huge wooden wheels cut deep trenches into narrow, twisting, muddy streets. Chickens and children scattered when the big black horse came bearing down on them, churning up chunks of earth with its heavy hoofs. The beast, carriage, and occupants came to a halt in front of the cobbler’s cottage. “Cobbler! Cobbler!” shouted the Earl before the carriage door had even been opened. The driver jumped to the ground and rushed to the Earl’s door. Placing his hand on the gold-plated handle, he cleared his throat. “Good people of Buttercup,” he began in a smooth deep voice. “Make way for the Earl of Buttercup.” When the door was opened, the Earl looked out and paused. “Well, where is the damn cobbler?” he asked. “Cobbler! Cobbler! Cobbler!” the Earl began shouting, his huge jowls jiggling.

“My Lord,” the driver said. “We have yet to go and knock upon the cobbler’s cottage door.”

“Ah yes, yes of course, the cottage door. I shall dismount from the carriage, and you shall go and knock upon the cottage door, fetch the cobbler, and bring him here, agreed?”

“Agreed, my Lord.”

The cobbler had heard the shouting, despite his door being closed. He considered hiding, but then thought he’d better not. The Earl would only have his premises searched, which would no doubt result in the discovery of his still, leading to an awkward question of taxes. Instead he took a few more pulls from his jug and made his way to the door. He waited for the knock, arranged a pleasant smile on his face, and swung the door open.

“Greetings, greetings, good sir. To what do I owe this surprise?” the cobbler asked with as much forced enthusiasm as he could muster.

“You are to speak with the Earl of Buttercup, good citizen,” the driver said, rolling his eyes.

“Oh my, a great honor indeed,” said the cobbler.

“Ya ya, a great honor,” the driver muttered. As the two men approached the portly figure of the Earl who stood impatiently by the huge black carriage, the cobbler’s knees buckled and he fell forward, landing face-down in the mud at the Earl of Buttercup’s feet. The carriage driver shook his head and wrinkled his nose. He’d been able to smell the distilled potato water fumes wafting on the cobbler’s breath from the moment he’d opened his mouth.

“Perhaps, my Lord,” the driver said, “you should chose a different cobbler.”

“Treachery! Treachery! You spider-legged horse-buggerer,” shouted the Earl, whacking the carriage driver on the head with his cane. “You half-breed, potato-sucking, garment-sniffing cross-dresser. You…” The Earl leaned back against the carriage, panting, his face red and his forehead damp with sweat. Struggling to catch his breath, he continued his rant. “You…onanist…shit…stinking…self…flagellator.” The Earl, quite winded with the effort, remained silent for several minutes. After he had composed himself, he straightened up again. “I will decide who cobbles my shoes. I will, I alone. If I’d wanted the advice of a feces-flinging monkey, I would have gone to the royal zoo, would I not have? Oh yes, oh yes I would have, yes yes.”

“Of course, My Lord,” the driver said, pretending to yawn.

The cobbler lifted his face from the mud and found himself staring directly at the Earl’s black shoes.

“Dreadful, aren’t they?” The Earl asked. “Don’t be polite, you can say it. They are catastrophes.” He lifted one foot and brought it nearer to the cobbler’s face, offering him a better view. “It will be a wonder if the Lady Nettlebottom doesn’t see fit to punish me for arriving in such disgraceful shape.”

The cobbler, struggling with every fiber of his being not to vomit, scarcely heard a word the Earl was saying. “You will craft for me a pair of perfect shoes,” the Earl went on. “Exactly like these,” once more lifting his foot and pushing it towards the cobbler’s upturned face, “only better.”

“But my Lord,” the cobbler stammered, struggling to lift himself onto his knees. “I am retired. I no longer possess the skill I once did. I cannot see well, My Lord, I go cross-eyed. My back is crooked and my hands tremble with the aching sickness.”

“He means the drinking sickness, he does,” muttered the driver under his breath.

“Nonsense!” shouted the Earl. “I won’t have you speaking ill of yourself. They’ll be picked up tomorrow first thing.”

With that, the Earl turned and lifted his leg up to the step beneath the carriage door. “Driver! Driver!” he shouted. The driver gave the mud-covered cobbler a pitying look. “If you don’t make them,” he whispered, “he’ll have you killed.” He then turned and placed his hands on the Earl’s massive buttocks. “Here we go, my Lord. One, two, three,” and pushed the Earl up into the carriage.

“Wait!” the cobbler said. “I must measure your feet!”

“Nonsense,” the Earl replied. “You are a maker of shoes, not a measurer of things.” The driver closed the door and mounted the carriage. “Tomorrow!” the Earl shouted. The driver’s long whip cracked, and the big black horse pulled the carriage away down the narrow mud-choked lane. On his knees, filthy and trembling, the cobbler watched them go.

For the remainder of the day, the cobbler sat in his cottage drinking from his jug. He first thought that he would find another cobbler and commission him to make the shoes, but he couldn’t even do that. He had no measurements, nor did he remember what the Earl’s shoes had looked like. He took some scraps of leather, his hole punchers and hammer, and spread them out on his workbench. He began working and drinking, the second more that the first, and eventually passed out.

At some point late in the night when the sickle moon was high in the sky, the cobbler was awoken by a knock on the door. His heart thumped in his chest, thinking it must be the Earl looking for his shoes, but noticing the darkness and hence the late hour, he realized with relief that he was mistaken. The cobbler looked about himself in confusion and groped for his potato water in the dark. The knocking came again. Normally, the cobbler would not open his door to strangers in the dead of night, but he was still quite drunk and felt as though he now had nothing to lose. He opened the door and looked out. No one was there. Fearing wandering spirits, he began to pull the door shut when he heard a small voice sound from his feet. There, standing before him, was a tiny man, no taller than the cobbler’s hand was long.

“Cobbler, the hour is late and time is short, so I will be brief. I and my four brothers are in danger. If you help us, we can help you. If you agree to take us in as your charges, if you offer us room and board, we will cobble shoes for you. Shoes of exquisite quality. There are some other terms to the arrangement, but we’ll explain them to you tomorrow. Do you agree?” The cobbler, swaying from side to side, quite certain that he was hallucinating, agreed.

The next morning there was a pounding at the door; the cobbler jumped up. His trembling hands closed around the potato water jug’s cork and pulled it free.

“Oh dear, oh dear, this is it,” he stammered. “Perhaps if I beg for mercy, the Earl will spare me. What if it wasn’t my fault? What if I were injured? I know, I know, I’ll cut off my hand, then the Earl couldn’t possibly blame me for not making his shoes.” The cobbler stumbled about the cottage, looking for something he could use to cut off his hand. The pounding on the door grew louder. All of a sudden, the cobbler stopped dead in his tracks. There on his workbench sat a pair of shiny new shoes, expertly cobbled, and adorned with beautiful brass buckles. “Dear God in heaven,” the cobbler said. “That strange dream I had. Could it have been real?”

“Cobbler! Open this door or I shall kick it in!”

The cobbler rushed to the door and opened it. A young boy was standing outside, accompanied by a soldier.

“I’m to collect the Earl of Buttercup’s new shoes,” the boy said. “Give them to me now.” The cobbler, having no time to consider what else to do, handed the boy the mysterious shoes from his workbench.

“Here you are, young master,” the cobbler said. The boy took the shoes without even looking at them and dropped a half-silver piece into the cobbler’s hand. After the boy and the soldier departed, the cobbler returned to his work bench, sat down, and looked dumbfounded at the space where the shoes had been.

“Well,” said a shrill voice from somewhere below the cobblers knees. “I hope the fat deviant is happy with his shoes. He won’t find a better pair in all the land.” Underneath the cobbler’s workbench stood five tiny men. One was pink, one yellow, one blue, one lavender, and one green. They all had beautiful multicolored wings like butterflies, were completely naked, and had no visible genitals. One by one the tiny sprites fluttered up from the floor and lit upon the workbench.

“By all that’s holy, I’ve never seen the like,” the cobbler said, astounded. “How shall I ever repay you good fairies? You’ve saved my life.”

“Fairies,” the blue-skinned man replied, “are obscene creatures who can’t stop fornicating long enough to say hello. We are elves, and you shall repay us by doing whatever we tell you to do, whenever we want.” The other four broke up with giggles.

The cobbler laughed. “And what would you fine elves have me do for you?”

“Bring us mushrooms!” the yellow elf shrieked.

“No, bring us walnuts!” shouted the pink one, shooting a tiny ball of pink light from his fingertips. The yellow elf dodged the light and returned fire, shooting several darts of yellow light in quick succession, missing the pink elf completely, but hitting the blue, green, and lavender elves. They all began shouting at each other, firing balls of colored light all over the cottage. Where the lights hit the cottage wall, they left little bursts of colored powder. But each time one hit the cobbler, it burned his skin and raised a large red welt.

“Enough, enough,” cried the cobbler. “You’re causing me terrible pain. Look how you are burning me.” All at once the elves stopped and glared at him. The blue elf stepped forward and pointed his finger at the trembling cobbler.

“Go and bring us a mushroom salad on a bed of rose petals. If you are not back here in one hour, we shall cast a spell and infect you with an itching foot fungus.”

The cobbler was silent, not sure if he had heard correctly. To show the cobbler that he was serious, the elf snapped his fingers several times, and as he did so, painful red welts sprang up on the cobbler’s forehead.

“Oh, oh please stop!” the cobbler cried, stumbling out the door. “I’ll bring it, I’ll bring it!”

Starting up the lane toward the hillside where the wild mushrooms grow, the cobbler tried to piece together his foggy fragments of memory from the previous night. He recalled having spoken with a rather diminutive person on the doorstep, but that fellow had been alone and had been a normal color, or at least he thought so. It was dark, and the man had been wearing a tiny hooded traveler’s cloak. The cobbler was worried. He’d heard stories of magic elves and began to fear that he might be in real danger.

When he finally reached the hillside, he had to travel all the way back into town, realizing that he didn’t have a basket. Upon returning with his basket, he spent at least two hours scouring the hillside for mushrooms. He moved slow, often stumbling. His hands were trembling fiercely. Knowing that he would find no wild roses, the cobbler decided to buy some from the florist.

At last the cobbler returned to his cottage. Inside he found that the elves had been drinking his potato water. Fluttering about the cottage like moths, they laughed and called to one another, sending tiny balls of colored light whizzing through the air like shooting stars. They had broken all of the cobbler’s cups and bowls and destroyed his cobbling tools. The cottage walls, floor, and ceiling were covered with splotches of colored powder.

“Here you are, little masters, I did what you asked of me. A mushroom salad on a bed of rose petals. Please, please, take it and go,” the cobbler said. He tried to sound casual, but his teeth were chattering with fear. “I thank you for the shoes, but I can manage from here.”

The elves broke up with laughter. “You can never be rid of us, old man,” cried the blue elf. “We have a deal, a deal bound with a spell which you agreed to, you drunken old fool. We will make shoes for you, and you will give us everything we ask for.”

“Unless of course, we get bored and decide to eat you,” the yellow elf sang out in a high-pitched nasally twang. At that, the elves laughed so hard they could barely stand. They stumbled about, pushing and kicking each other, giggling like lunatics. Suddenly the green-skinned elf began dancing and chanting. “A rabbit! A rabbit! Caught in a snare. Crack its teeth and pull out its hair. Break its legs and see if it walks. Pull out its tongue and see if it talks. We’ll be the hunting dogs, he’ll be the prey. Let’s see if the rabbit can scamper away.” The green elf laughed so hard, he doubled over choking and coughing until he vomited bright green powder. The cobbler shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot, not sure what to say or do next.

“And you were not back in an hour,” said the blue elf with a wicked grin. He clapped his hands and the cobbler fell to the floor, tearing off his shoes and howling out in pain. His feet were swollen, red, and covered with sores, as though his shoes had been stuffed with poison ivy.

Over the following weeks, more and more noblemen arrived at the cobbler’s door, placing orders for shoes. At first the cobbler tried to decline the orders, not wanting to be further indebted to the elves. But when he opened his mouth to say that he’d retired, it was as though someone else were speaking. “Yes of course,” he’d say. “They’ll be ready tomorrow.” Realizing that he was under the control of a spell, he gave up. There was no limit to the number of orders he would take. Sometimes up to five pairs of shoes were to be made in a single night. The elves always delivered, and the money poured in, but the cobbler could scarcely keep up. He was forced to work the still at all hours, making potato water for the elves. He was lucky if they let him have three hours of sleep per night, and if he tarried, the elves would blight him with terrible skin rashes from head to toe. The cobbler himself was drinking more than ever, and had almost stopped eating completely.

As the cobbler’s physical appearance deteriorated, the local folk were less and less inclined to buy their distilled potato water from him. “Sampling a bit too much of his product,” they whispered. People began making the journey to West Tuckersville for their potato water. The noblemen, feeling more themselves when speaking down to the poor and the crippled, continued placing orders for ever-fancier shoes: purple-brushed leather with yellow bows, shiny black high-heeled boots, soft-soled slippers covered in colored glass beads. Soon, shoes became his primary income, and the still operated solely in service of the elves.

The cobbler’s still was kept in a cellar beneath the cottage floor. It was a marvelous machine. He’d spent the better part of five years building it. It stood two heads higher than he did and was twice as wide as he was with his arm stretched out from side to side. To the unlearned eye it was a helter-skelter of pipes, cauldrons, and furnaces, but its construction was masterly. The cobbler possessed the mind of an engineer, but not the art of a distiller. His potato water had a reputation for wide swings in quality from batch to batch. But, it had been popular enough until recently. Trudging up the stairs from the still cellar, the cobbler carried fresh jugs of potato water for the elves.

“Where have you been, slowpoke?” the pink elf demanded. “I have a task for you. It’s very important.”

“Oh what do you want now, you horrible little monsters?” the cobbler said. “Why don’t you just kill me and be done with it? Filthy imps!”

The elves fell all over themselves giggling and kicking the floor.

“You could be rid of us, you know,” the blue elf said. “There is a spell that would do it, but you wouldn’t be able to pull it off. Besides, it requires some very specific ingredients, and it’s not sanitary.”

“Not sanitary?” asked the cobbler, his interest piqued.

“Well, first you need to collect the menses rags of a seven-hundred-year-old witch. Then you need to stitch them up inside of a dead goat’s urinary bladder on a full moon’s night. From then on it gets a bit unpleasant.”

“Okay, okay, spare me the details,” the cobbler said.

“Since you’re useless at spells and you can’t make shoes, why don’t you go and cut us some flowers,” spat the blue elf.

“But before he goes, let’s make him pretty,” chirped the yellow elf. All of the elves began snapping their fingers and clusters of fever blisters erupted on the cobbler’s lips.

“What do we want to eat? Bluebells or daffodils?” shouted the blue elf.

“Bluebells, bluebells, bluebells, bluebells,” the other four cried in unison. “Bring us six silver kettles, and five bluebell petals. Bring us four stocks of heather, and three raven’s feathers. Bring us two creeping vines, and one jug of wine.”

“I can’t get those things,” the cobbler shouted. “You know I can’t, this has gone too far. Do to me what you will, I’ll bring you nothing at all!”

“Bring it all here right now, and dance while we dine, or we’ll cut off a finger and leave you with nine,” the elves sang.

“I’ll do nothing! Filthy imps!” the cobbler said.

“Oh bother,” the blue elf sighed. “Well, I’ll have your silly old finger then. Just to teach you a lesson, I’ll take your right thumb.” With that the elf clapped his hands and the cobbler’s right thumb severed itself and fell to the floor. The elves ran over, laughing hysterically, picked up the thumb, and tossed it back and forth between them. The cobbler’s hand sang out in pain. He wrapped his shirt around the small stump, trying to staunch the bleeding. “Monsters! Monsters!” he cried. The elves laughed as though it were the funniest thing they’d ever seen.

Day in and day out it was the same. The elves would spend all day drinking his distilled potato water, giggling and wrestling each other. They’d order him to dance a jig or sing a ballad. They would afflict him with all kinds of ailments: explosive diarrhea one day, toothaches the next day, any number of rashes and poxes. And every day they would send him out for a mushroom salad on a bed of rose petals.

He was becoming such a regular at the florist, his roses were already prepared for him when he arrived. Finally the florist pulled the cobbler aside.

“How many times have you showered her with roses? Will you continue to do so forever? Give her up, man. Turn your attentions elsewhere. Do not fret over your afflictions of the skin. You have money! There are many girls who’d have you.”

“I am hopelessly smitten,” the cobbler replied wearily. “Hopelessly smitten.”

Early one morning, the elves sent the cobbler down to the still for fresh jugs of potato water, but not before covering his feet with weeping blisters. The elves laughed hysterically, watching as the cobbler limped down the stairs.

On one of his trips out collecting mushrooms, buying flowers, and restocking supplies for the still, the cobbler purchased a length of rope. He kept it coiled up on the floor of the still cellar. Looking at the rope now, he made up his mind. He’d known when he was buying it what it would be for, but refused at the time to admit it to himself. Now, however, he felt no doubt at all. He threw the rope over a ceiling beam and set to the task of tying a noose. Without his right thumb, it was slow and difficult work. His arm ached and throbbed horribly in the elbow and shoulder. He assumed it was an infection spreading up his arm from the thumb, but he didn’t care. Suddenly an idea struck him.

The cobbler jumped up and ran to the still. He fastened down all the clamps as tight as he could, stoked the furnaces, and closed the steam vents. He opened all the pipes to let in as much pressure as they could deliver and scurried up the stairs carrying two full jugs for the elves.

“Shall I bring you a salad, little masters?" he asked cheerily, placing the jugs on the table.

“A salad, a salad, a salad, a salad,” they all began chanting. “Mushrooms and rose, or we’ll blight your toes. Bring us our meat, or we’ll hobble your feet.” The elves joined hands and danced in a ring on the tabletop. “Cut us some flowers, be back in an hour, if you’re late coming back it’s you we’ll devour.” The elves then fell on the tabletop, overcome with a fit of giggles.

The cobbler hastened out the door, bowing and scraping, all smiles as he went. He made his way down the road to what he considered to be a safe distance and sat down in the mud. Looking at his cottage, rocking back and forth, muttering to himself, the cobbler waited. Buttercup was quiet. A soft wind rustled the leaves of the surrounding trees. Chickens clucked in the distance. And then, a sound like a thunderclap burst open the quiet day. The cobbler’s cottage roof blew off completely, breaking into hundreds of pieces as it rose into the sky. The cottage door exploded outward, sailed across the road, and shattered against the wall of a cottage on the opposite side.

The cobbler danced, cackling like a madman in the muddy streets, while a mishmash of debris and expertly cobbled shoes rained down on the township of Buttercup.

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